Mike Soldano talks about EVH's Marshall

[gibson5413]

The Variac doesn't do anything except make it quieter...especially the way he ran it at 89 or 90 volts with the bias cranked up, it would sound stock just quieter...no gain boost or sagginess to it, and the Echoplex just doesn't generate that level of gain...why are all his later amps high gain if he doesn't like high gain ? I'll NEVER believe there wasn't gain boosting or Bandmaster shit going on on the first record, but he backed away from it pretty quickly, 'cuz VHII don't sound like that...

First off.. Wassup everyone. I haven't been on this forum in ages because I left due to the horseshit that was going on and I'm only here now because I bought something in the classifieds and saw this! With that said, Those who know me, should already know that I love the whole VH debates, so I figured that I would chime in. This will more then likely be my one and only time on here, so you can take this information or leave it, but I'll offer it up anyway and be done with it.

The problem with the EVH debate is that if you tell a lie for so long, it becomes the truth. I have been hipped to exactly what was done to get that tone and you can take what I'm saying of leave it. I don't really care and will more then luikely be met with all sorts of interesting comments lol.

As a person who once thought the same way you did I can now tell you with 100% conviction that you are WRONG. DEAD wrong. You can get that amount of gain out of a plexi and a variac provided that it has the right spec. If you play a stock plexi that has your typical values that became mainstream and slap a variac on it, it will be cool and distort more but not like EVH distortion, but if you use a Plexi that had the VH values , or close to it, dime it or close to dime it and slap a variac on it and use it through low wattage speakers you will be surprised by what you hear.
The reason why VH1 doesn't sound like VH II and vice versa besides the obvious is because VH 1 has a mix of 2 speakers. VHII does not. I have heard the unjaped original and there is a definite mix og 2 speakers which makes VH1 gainier sounding and rattier (sp? )

If you don't want to take my word on it, here is a clip. Mike Fortin built me a Marshall with a specific spec and a built in variac. The variac was built in to save me the hassle and it works just like a variac would. There is no horseshit going on, I plugged straight into the amp on a side that only has 2 gain stages and when I cranked it and brought the volume down with the variac, this is what I got . (added verb and delay post)The fucking amp goes from real clean to mean as you dump the variac and the harmonics explode right off of the guitar. If I had never gotten to experience this, id still think that there was a gain mod but the truth is that this is very close to a stock plexi spec.
I don't claim to have nailed "THE TONE" but when playing this amp, it removed a lot of pre conceived notions I had about the infamous brown sound.
The truth is, Yes mo fo's.. you can get that much gain out of 2 gain stages if you have the right ingredients. You guys can continue to believe what you want, and that's ok, but I'm good with what I have learned!

You will notice that the Variac adds the hair and the illusive extra zing or warp that you only here EVH get. I've heard many VH clips and they miss that extra cackyness or fizz on the notes.

Hope all is well with everyone and Happy Holidays to all/

Cheers!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYr-CITKD5s

Boom, Rig-Talk is alive again! Stay around Ralphie!

 

[JB6464]

So is the 12301 head a shared or split cathode pre amp design ?

 

[Atomic Amps]

The Variac doesn't do anything except make it quieter...especially the way he ran it at 89 or 90 volts with the bias cranked up, it would sound stock just quieter...no gain boost or sagginess to it, and the Echoplex just doesn't generate that level of gain...why are all his later amps high gain if he doesn't like high gain ? I'll NEVER believe there wasn't gain boosting or Bandmaster shit going on on the first record, but he backed away from it pretty quickly, 'cuz VHII don't sound like that...

First off.. Wassup everyone. I haven't been on this forum in ages because I left due to the horseshit that was going on and I'm only here now because I bought something in the classifieds and saw this! With that said, Those who know me, should already know that I love the whole VH debates, so I figured that I would chime in. This will more then likely be my one and only time on here, so you can take this information or leave it, but I'll offer it up anyway and be done with it.

The problem with the EVH debate is that if you tell a lie for so long, it becomes the truth. I have been hipped to exactly what was done to get that tone and you can take what I'm saying of leave it. I don't really care and will more then luikely be met with all sorts of interesting comments lol.

As a person who once thought the same way you did I can now tell you with 100% conviction that you are WRONG. DEAD wrong. You can get that amount of gain out of a plexi and a variac provided that it has the right spec. If you play a stock plexi that has your typical values that became mainstream and slap a variac on it, it will be cool and distort more but not like EVH distortion, but if you use a Plexi that had the VH values , or close to it, dime it or close to dime it and slap a variac on it and use it through low wattage speakers you will be surprised by what you hear.
The reason why VH1 doesn't sound like VH II and vice versa besides the obvious is because VH 1 has a mix of 2 speakers. VHII does not. I have heard the unjaped original and there is a definite mix og 2 speakers which makes VH1 gainier sounding and rattier (sp? )

If you don't want to take my word on it, here is a clip. Mike Fortin built me a Marshall with a specific spec and a built in variac. The variac was built in to save me the hassle and it works just like a variac would. There is no horseshit going on, I plugged straight into the amp on a side that only has 2 gain stages and when I cranked it and brought the volume down with the variac, this is what I got . (added verb and delay post)The fucking amp goes from real clean to mean as you dump the variac and the harmonics explode right off of the guitar. If I had never gotten to experience this, id still think that there was a gain mod but the truth is that this is very close to a stock plexi spec.
I don't claim to have nailed "THE TONE" but when playing this amp, it removed a lot of pre conceived notions I had about the infamous brown sound.
The truth is, Yes mo fo's.. you can get that much gain out of 2 gain stages if you have the right ingredients. You guys can continue to believe what you want, and that's ok, but I'm good with what I have learned!

You will notice that the Variac adds the hair and the illusive extra zing or warp that you only here EVH get. I've heard many VH clips and they miss that extra cackyness or fizz on the notes.

Hope all is well with everyone and Happy Holidays to all/

Cheers!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYr-CITKD5s

Stick around, Ralph!

 

[sytharnia1560]

and just for fun, another variac and stock amp example that this is totally possible. The guy isn't even using a hot pup:

So now that we have been through there, any specific variac I need to buy to try this with a 50 watt 1987x?

there is something off about that tone ..... I think its the upside down headstock

 

[Rocksoff]

So is the 12301 head a shared or split cathode pre amp design ?

It's split and it has a 820 ohm cathode resistor for the first stage etc etc, the specs are pretty well known.

Marshall came out with a higher gain design (mainly using lower cathode resistors) around 1968 or so, and that's EVH's number 1 amp and EVH also has a lot of other amps and had a 50 watt in 1977 and had a wooden Marshall etc etc and he daisy chained blocks of 3 Marshall's together for the 1978 world tour and the bigger venues and one block would be used for Eruption with the Univox and the other block for everything else and the Eruption/Univox block could also be used as a backup if needed.

Don't forget that EVH had picked up the variac trick from a European Marshall and any Marshall that EVH bought from that point on (and he did because there are early photos showing turnover of gear) would have been bought if it sounded good at lowered variac voltages and even with lowered variac voltages in the 70 volt range.

Another thing is EVH ran the amps with everything at 10 and uses the variac, and he would have chosen amps that sounded good with those settings combined with the variac.

Someone doesn't need to be an amp genius, they just need to try out about 30 Marshall's as EVH probably did and just keep the ones that sounded the best to them at variaced flat out settings.

The PAF vs a Super Distortion (Mighty Mite) pickup thing, well EVH didn't use standard PAF's in the Franky, he used Duncan PAF rewinds (according to EVH) and who knows what they were but Duncan ran an ad in 1979 with a EVH pickup which turns out to be a Duncan Custom pickup and EVH also had a truckload of various model Mighty Mite ceramic pickups that made their way into various guitars, so EVH did not just stick to standard PAF's but he could have also just used some stock PAF's as well and there was always an EQ hanging around if he needed a bit of a boost.

Another thing is EVH's EQ's and he was often running EQ's in between the Echoplex (last effect in the chain) and the amp(s) for EQing and cable loss reasons and maybe a bit of a boost and the Univox delay (end of Eruption) was only put into the chain for Eruption and he ran an EQ in front of the Univox because the Univox's input impedance tended to be on the low side.

EVH had his pickup slanted in a Strat bridge pickup way in his Strat which makes some difference but VH1 was recorded with a lot of the songs done on his Ibanez Destroyer which did not have a slanted pickup.

The other thing that a lot don't seem to pick up on is EVH's Echoplex.

EVH had specific Echoplex models that came out at the time when dyna-comp like compression boards were being added to the Echoplex's (with lightish fixed value compression settings) and this compression was on the repeats and was not on the original signal.

EVH had the Echoplex ON for most of his playing on VH1 with a 300ms (a third of a second) delay just about always lurking in the background, so EVH was often getting delayed/doubled notes which opens the whole thing up and makes it sound bigger.

Like, EVH would hit a power chord and it would hit again a third of a second after at a reduced volume due to the 300ms Echoplex tape delay and this Echoplex repeat might have had compression on it from the Echoplex compression board.

The EP3 pre amps that became trendy are just BS compared to a real Echoplex and the Echoplex model EVH had and these FET based EP3 pre amps might not even be modelled after the EP3 preamp EVH might have had, which very likely was a transistor based pre amp that came with the compression board Echoplex EP's and EP4's.

All of this was also put through the Sunset Sound's reverb (echo) chamber to make it sound even bigger and then mixed in that strange left/right way to make EVH's guitar as big as possible on the record.

In the club boots EVH has none of this reverb going on, of course and it's mainly the Echoplex making his guitar sound bigger.

Then EVH uses the Phase on top of the Echoplex for his solos, so there are 2 time based effects (Phase, Echoplex) mixed in for his solos, making them even bigger.

Seeing that ears and perceptions can be all over the place, all of this confuses the fxck out of a lot of wannabees, when it's really pretty straight forward and is really just EVH choosing gear and settings to go along with how he was playing.

 

[JB6464]

Thanks Rocksoff !

 

[paulyc]

I'm not buying it...he stated that Jose did stuff to his amps, that he added things to his MXR pedals to reduce noise and boost gain, and that his best tone ever was the white Bandmaster (probably the same model/spec that Brian Setzer uses), I have a Variac and tried it on a Super Lead with 2 tubes pulled and the bias all the way up...sounded the same as the amp with 4 tubes in it, just quieter, no notes exploding off the pick...doesn't brown out the sound or make it sag at all...the 6CA7s were used because they were higher quality EL34 style tubes that would take this abuse (cathode stripping), I doubt Ed sat around and bought the best of 30 Marshalls that sounded good on a Variac...he stated later on that old Marshalls could be MADE to sound good if they didn't when purchased initially, implying work/mods were being done to get his tone...and yes, Ed was poor in the early days, but somehow he blew up his Bandmaster every 8 months or so (output transformer), but felt the sound he got was worth it (and that it was repaired over and over)...I don't doubt it's on VH1 if he felt THAT strongly about it that he'd fix the damn thing every 6 to 8 months

 

[paulyc]

And please stop refering to Sunset Sound's echo chember, it's an EMT Plate reverb... he bought one for 5150 when he built it, in fact he bought ALL the same studio gear they had at Sunset trying to duplicate the sound of VH1, even HE can't/couldn't do it...

 

[stephen sawall]

If anyone tries a variac ..... When you lower the variac it also changes the bias on the tubes. You need to bias your tubes for the variac setting. Going too low of a variac setting can damage amps. Make sure you know what you are doing before you try this.

 

[Rdodson]

So is the 12301 head a shared or split cathode pre amp design ?

Someone doesn't need to be an amp genius, they just need to try out about 30 Marshall's as EVH probably did and just keep the ones that sounded the best to them at variaced flat out settings.

12301 sorta fell in his lap. He didn't sort through a bunch of 68s; it was the first nice amp he ever had. Just luck. He borrowed or used a bunch of other Marshalls, Music Mans, Vox, etc. as the band was getting bigger before signing. But he didn't go on a Arthurian quest.

 

[paulyc]

I was explaining Ed's use of the Variac...89-90 volts, bias CRANKED, NO consideration for the life of the tubes/amplifier. For Christ's sake, use your ears. Randy Rhoads used a distortion class pickup into an MXR Distortion Plus into a Super Lead with a one wire mod done to it, but Eddie's sound has WAY more gain on it (on VHI at least).

 

[Rdodson]

For Christ's sake, use your ears.

?

Did I say something wrong? You are right that the bias was cranked, and with the voltage at 90 that brought it back to 70% dissipation range. But since he wasn't just lowering the plate voltage, eventually this trashed the transformer and the tube life would suffer. The amp now has a C1998 out of another 12000, per Dave.

 

[paulyc]

No, not at all...but I personally can't believe this is even a discussion. There's WAY too much gain for a stock plexi on VHI, I might believe stock plexi on 1984, because the gain is backed way down through the years, but not on the first record...there's something else going on...drifted cathode resistors increasing gain, Bandmaster, distortion box...something...

 

[paulyc]

Go check out chubtone's thread about Jake E Lee on Badland's Dusk recording about what a stock super lead would/should be expected to sound like, then come back and explain that against VHI...it ain't Templeman/Landee entirely...

 

[Rdodson]

Paul,
I got that level of gain out of both of my 12000s that I've owned. That particular circuit really pushed V2 and the PI. Just personal experience. One I ran with the plate voltage lowered and that got me dead on...the other I just had a PPIMV installed so I didn't die standing in front of the thing.

Ron

 

[paulyc]

I had a '79 Super Bass converted to 12000 spec (Ed spec) at 90 volts on the Variac with NOS 6CA7s in it and didn't get anywhere near it...I fooled with cathode resistors too...couldn't get there...this was through greenbacks, Alnico Blues, V30s, and a mix of greenbacks/ JBLs...I've tried different pickups, bridges, volume pot values (in the guitar), OD/boost pedals...no dice.

 

[evhfan]

So is the 12301 head a shared or split cathode pre amp design ?

Someone doesn't need to be an amp genius, they just need to try out about 30 Marshall's as EVH probably did and just keep the ones that sounded the best to them at variaced flat out settings.

12301 sorta fell in his lap. He didn't sort through a bunch of 68s; it was the first nice amp he ever had. Just luck. He borrowed or used a bunch of other Marshalls, Music Mans, Vox, etc. as the band was getting bigger before signing. But he didn't go on a Arthurian quest.

The Magic Marshall was the house amp at Gazzarri's or the Rainbow (or somewhere they used to play)...Ed ended up buying it from them.

agreed...he didn't do through a million Marshalls to find the right one.

 

[Rdodson]

I had a '79 Super Bass converted to 12000 spec (Ed spec) at 90 volts on the Variac with NOS 6CA7s in it and didn't get anywhere near it...I fooled with cathode resistors too...couldn't get there...this was through greenbacks, Alnico Blues, V30s, and a mix of greenbacks/ JBLs...I've tried different pickups, bridges, volume pot values (in the guitar), OD/boost pedals...no dice.

Was it set to the specs both Dave and John Suhr have posted?

Here's my old 12000 replica at that spec:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-iqH1 ... iLsseJDxjQ

TONS of gain...this is through Scumback M75s.

 

[paulyc]

So is the 12301 head a shared or split cathode pre amp design ?

Someone doesn't need to be an amp genius, they just need to try out about 30 Marshall's as EVH probably did and just keep the ones that sounded the best to them at variaced flat out settings.

12301 sorta fell in his lap. He didn't sort through a bunch of 68s; it was the first nice amp he ever had. Just luck. He borrowed or used a bunch of other Marshalls, Music Mans, Vox, etc. as the band was getting bigger before signing. But he didn't go on a Arthurian quest.

The Magic Marshall was the house amp at Gazzarri's or the Rainbow (or somewhere they used to play)...Ed ended up buying it from them.

agreed...he didn't do through a million Marshalls to find the right one.

It was the house amp at the Pasadena Rose Palace I think it was called...he said it was an incredible amp...tons of balls, anyone who played there played through it.

 

[paulyc]

I had a '79 Super Bass converted to 12000 spec (Ed spec) at 90 volts on the Variac with NOS 6CA7s in it and didn't get anywhere near it...I fooled with cathode resistors too...couldn't get there...this was through greenbacks, Alnico Blues, V30s, and a mix of greenbacks/ JBLs...I've tried different pickups, bridges, volume pot values (in the guitar), OD/boost pedals...no dice.

Was it set to the specs both Dave and John Suhr have posted?

Here's my old 12000 replica at that spec:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-iqH1 ... iLsseJDxjQ

TONS of gain...this is through Scumback M75s.

Your definition of "tons of gain" is VERY different than mine, and while the sound you posted is a good approximation of what Unchained sounds like (but an even better representation of 1984), it is not a great representation of ANYTHING from VHI, this is NOT a criticism, just an observation. Ed backed off the gain right after VHI, VHII doesn't sound as gainy and biting to my ears...it's warmer, less gain and high end...and he kind of stayed with that sound up through 1984, although the sound got cleaner and cleaner as the years rolled by (until F.U.C.K. at least, then it was a high gain shit show).

To answer your question, yes, it was set to the spec Suhr supplied...

The boost pedals I used were all things that would have been available AT THAT TIME...(MXR Dist+ & Micro Amp , DOD 250 & FET, EH LPB-1, etc...) not modern ODs like Boss or Ibanez...
Ed gave clues about it being "total tube distortion, I hate the fuzz box, raspy kind of sound", so unless that was a miss direct to throw people off, I don't know what to say...but high output ceramic pickups (SD and MMs) with a 1 meg volume pot in the guitar into an Egnater modded JCM 800 (Megadrive mod, 4th preamp tube) with a Scholz half rack graphic eq in the loop set to boost 1k to the highest limit of the slider (+12 db or so I think) with a plate reverb setting gets me as close as I need it to be...but it's still missing something (most likely his hands).